The widow failed a lie-detector test. A confidential informant told cops the husband of the dead man's lover arranged the hit. The dead man's son believed a threat to expose an insurance scam led to the killing. A jail-house snitch pitched a tale of double dealing that ended when the dead man ripped off a group of Iranian gun dealers.

Such are the intriguing revelations of the Akron police investigative file into the sunny spring day shooting seven years ago of Jeff Zack.

At 12:09 p.m. Saturday, June 16, 2001, a mysterious assassin, face hidden beneath a helmet, body sheathed in black leather, fired a bullet through the driver's side window of the blue 1993 Ford Explorer that Jeff Zack had just parked next to pump No. 3 at B.J.'s Wholesale Club gas station in the working-class neighborhood of Chapel Hill.

Zack took a single kill shot to the head. The .38 slug punched a hole in his left cheek, ripped through the roof of his mouth and blew out the back of his skull just behind his right ear.

The shooter climbed on a Ninja-style motorcycle, gunned it past gaping witnesses, and tore into the bumper-to-bumper traffic that clogged Home Avenue.

The low-slung, high-performance bike and its anonymous driver disappeared into a Sargasso Sea of Saturday morning shoppers.

The meticulously planned public execution baffled investigators for over a year. It had all the markings of a professional hit. Witnesses couldn't agree on the color of the bike or what the shooter was wearing. The only evidence police recovered at the scene was a .38 slug and a black skid mark.

Investigators quickly discovered Zack was a philanderer, a pimp, a bully and a blowhard with a criminal record in both Ohio and Arizona. They also learned he was having an affair with Cynthia Rohr-George, the petite, blond, blue-eyed wife of well-known, well-heeled and well-connected restaurateur Ed George, owner of the storied Tangier restaurant.

With the help of snitches and the uncorroborated testimony of two ex-wives, investigators built a circumstantial case against John Zaffino, a truck driver who was also having an affair with Rohr-George.

Despite his protestations of innocence, Zaffino was found guilty of aggravated murder in March 2003. He is serving a life sentence at Toledo Correctional Institution. Two years later, Rohr-George followed her former blue-collar lover into the Big House. Rohr-George was convicted in a trial without jury of conspiring with Zaffino to murder Zack.

After serving 16 months behind bars, Rohr-George was released last March after the 9th Ohio District Court of Appeals reversed her conviction, citing insufficient evidence.

In August, the Ohio Supreme Court refused to review the appellate court ruling. That decision closed the case against Rohr-George, and opened the criminal investigative file.

The same circumstantial evidence that freed Rohr-George keeps Zaffino imprisoned. The police never recovered a murder weapon or any forensic evidence that linked Zaffino, or Rohr-George, to the bullet that killed Zack.

Now the investigative file raises more questions about who whacked Zack and why defense lawyers didn't use that information at trial.

None of those suspects were brought up in either the Zaffino or Rohr-George trial.

"Sure they were leads, and we chased them all down," said Larry Whitney, who defended Zaffino. "They were all dead ends."

Whitney and two of the five high-profile attorneys who represented Rohr-George came under fire from prosecutors who alleged "hush money" was paid to Zaffino so he wouldn't implicate Rohr-George.

The defense attorneys, Michael Bowler and Robert Meeker, and Whitney denied the charge. Bowler and Meeker testified they had entered into an unwritten joint defense agreement with Whitney, who shared information with them in return for financial assistance.

The Rohr-George defense team also took a hard look at the four other suspects.

"Those avenues of defense are always attractive when you can create an alternative defendant," noted Bowler. "We spent a huge amount of time on that. It did look promising. But we all jointly decided that was not the way to defend our client. We felt they had a totally circumstantial case. We didn't feel that was enough to convict her beyond a reasonable doubt."

The widow is questioned and then released

On Aug. 27, 2001, Sgt. Sean Matheny administered a polygraph exam to Bonnie Zack. Before taking the test, Zack denied any involvement in the shooting. "She said she strongly believed that Ed George was behind her husband's murder because of a long-term affair Jeff Zack was having with Ed George's wife, Cindy," according to Matheny's report.

Zack also stated that her husband had confided in their son, Brian, "if anything ever happened to him, tell the police to go after Ed George," the report states.

But Zack herself was not above suspicion. She had called the cops on her husband after a "heated" argument in 1994. She didn't have an alibi. And she was the only person who knew that Brian, who usually accompanied his father to B.J.'s, wasn't with him the day of the murder. Brian and his father had an argument earlier that morning.

Bonnie Zack was asked three questions:

Do you know for sure why Jeff Zack was killed?

Do you know for sure who killed Jeff Zack?

Did you conspire with anyone to have Jeff Zack killed?

The results were "inconclusive," Matheny noted. "This was apparently due to her yawning consistently during the examination. She stated that she was exhausted from working on a rock garden the previous day."

A month later, Zack was brought back for a second polygraph exam. She was asked the same questions. This time she failed.

"It is my opinion that she cannot be eliminated as a suspect in the direct involvement in the death of Jeff Zack," Matheny wrote.

Detectives confronted Zack with the results of the polygraph as well as "inconsistencies and questions about her relationship with her husband."

"She was evasive or noncommittal in her responses," the report states.

"We interrogated her hot and heavy," said Lt. David Whiddon, who led the investigation. "She did have a motive. She never hid the fact that Jeff was not the perfect husband. We just didn't have any corroborating evidence."

Zack, who subsequently remarried a real estate agent and now goes by the name of Bonnie Cook, did not return repeated phone messages seeking comment. "She's not interested," said her husband, Mark, before hanging up.

She and her son, Brian, 19, have filed a wrongful-death suit against the Georges in Summit County civil court. It is set for trial in September.

A threat left on an answering machine

Three days before Zack was murdered, a disturbing message was left on his answering machine. "All right, buddy," a man said. "You got one more out, so you need to start answering your cell phone. OK? I will be talking to you. Or should I call your mom and dad's house in Arizona? Whatever. Answer the phone, boy."

Zack's son Brian told investigators he thought Michael Scranton was the man who left the anonymous message. Scranton was introduced to Zack by Terry Wright, who helped coach Brian's pee-wee football team. Scranton agreed to replace vinyl siding on the Zack residence that had been damaged in a hailstorm.

Zack gave Scranton a $6,233 check from the insurance company. The check was cashed, but the work was never done.

When Zack threatened to go to the police, Brian told detectives he heard Scranton snap, "I will rip your throat out with a hot butter knife."

Brian added that he didn't take it seriously when his father suggested that if anything happened to him, the cops should look at Ed George.

Brian believed Scranton killed his father "or had him killed . . . not Ed George," according to the investigative file.

Ben Fluellen, who described himself as a close friend of the dead man, confirmed that Zack was having a problem with Scranton. Fluellen told detectives that Zack said he was getting death threats to keep him from telling the police about the scam.

"I think it was one of those two guys that ripped him off for that check and that were supposed to work on his house," Fluellen told detectives.

When the cops asked Wright what his reaction was to Zack's murder, Wright responded that he felt Scranton "had something to do with this."

He also noted that "The Sopranos" was Scranton's favorite TV show.

On Sept. 6, 2001, Sgt. Sean Matheny administered a polygraph test to Scranton. In addition to the three questions posed to Bonnie Zack, detectives wanted to know if Scranton had left the cryptic message on Zack's answering machine.

Scranton answered "No" to each question. His responses were "indicative of truthfulness," Matheny wrote.

Scranton, who now lives in Florida, could not be reached for comment. He was indicted on other theft and forgery charges by a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas grand jury in October 2001 and later pleaded guilty.

"Scranton was the big lead we had," Lt. Whiddon said.

"He was not an outstanding citizen. He was well known in the insurance business for scamming people."

But the detectives concluded he wasn't a killer.

Could it be the Iranians?

Once Scranton had been eliminated as a suspect, detectives turned their attention to a prisoner with a story straight out of Hollywood.

Inmate William Facemire said he worked with Zack for three years at a local moving and storage company. He believed Zack "was killed by Iranian businessmen" at a local mall, according to the investigative file.

Facemire said the Iranians "were trying to get Jeff to fly shipments of guns for them, but he reneged on the deal."

He also told detectives that Zack "had ripped off the Iranians financially."

Facemire alleged that Zack's vending machine business was really a front for running guns. Facemire said he accompanied Zack on "numerous occasions" when Zack delivered firearms to a clothing and cell phone store in the mall.

"The longer weapons such as rifles and AK-47s would be brought in green and black fiberglass cases . . . hidden from view by the soda pop cartons," Facemire told detectives.

"The handguns such as 9mms, .357s and .44s . . . would be brought in inside 12-pack soda pop cartons."

Zack dropped off the armaments once every two weeks, Facemire said. He kept the money from these transactions in a gray plastic box in his Ford Explorer. Facemire said he had seen approximately $10,000 in the box after Zack made a delivery.

Zack did not always come out of the mall with cash. On those occasions he would drive to an eye surgeon's office to be paid, Facemire said.

He added that Zack stashed automatic weapons in a hiding place under the steps to his basement and behind his furnace.

"You know what Facemire was in jail for?" Whiddon asked. "He went to an old lady's house, sucker-punched her and robbed her. That's the kind of guy he is. He had this story and we followed up. The only thing that we could come up with is that he worked with Zack on a couple of jobs through this temporary agency. Nothing else he said was remotely true."

Whiddon said police did not recover any weapons at the Zack residence. But they did notify the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives about Facemire's allegations.

Not that the ATF seemed to care.

"Zack was never on their radar screen, I can tell you that," Whiddon said. And there was no evidence to pursue a case against the Iranians.

Some claim a Mafia hit

Cynthia Rohr-George and her husband, Ed, both had alibis the day Zack was shot. Rohr-George was at home, getting her seven children ready for a wedding. Her husband was meeting with city health inspectors at Tangier. Street construction had caused a sewer back-up at the restaurant.

But the question of whether Ed George was behind the murder of his wife's lover and the father of the Georges' youngest daughter loomed large at the time.

Zack's widow held him responsible. Zack's mother, Elayne, told investigators that George was a member of "the Lebanese Mafia." When asked by detectives how she knew that, Elayne replied, "Everyone knows that."

Richard "Red" Stanick, a retired Akron cop who worked security at Tangier for 18 years, told police that the first thing that came to his mind when he heard about the Zack shooting was "Ed found out what was going on, got sick of it and made a call that would end the affair completely."

It was all rumor and hearsay, part of the Tangier mystique as a watering hole for high rollers and back-room deals.

Then a confidential informant stepped forward in April 2002 with a sensational story of subterfuge.

The informant told investigators he was at Nick Anthe's restaurant in Akron about two weeks after the Zack murder. The informant was having a drink with an old friend, Joe Rea, who, the informant said, sold jewelry out of the trunk of his Oldsmobile.

Rea confided to the informant that Ed George had "reached out to him." Then Rea - with the help of Pasquale Ferruccio, a made member of the Pittsburgh mob - contacted a shooter in Pittsburgh, according to the investigative file.

The shooter drove to Akron in a rented truck with a motorcycle in the back. "The [informant] thinks that the actual meeting about the hit on Zack took place in Dave George's office," the report states. Dave George, who owns Bell Music, which leases juke boxes, pool tables and video gambling games to bars, bowling alleys and social clubs, is Ed George's younger brother. His office is across the street from Tangier.

Rea said they had been following Zack and knew that Zack always went to B.J.'s Wholesale Club, according to the confidential informant.

"After the hit, the motorcycle went right back on the truck and then went back to Pittsburgh," the informant told detectives.

Whiddon said the police had an FBI agent, whom he wouldn't identify, helping with the investigation. The agent wasn't able to confirm that George was connected.

"Nobody ever came up with any proof," Whiddon said.

The police never gave Rea a polygraph test.

"We just didn't feel that there was enough, based on what the [informant] was telling us, to do that," Whiddon said. "Rea wouldn't say anything."

"I don't know nothing," said Rea, who was reached at his Canton residence. "You got the wrong guy."

Ferruccio died a month before his 89th birthday in March 2006.

Ed George is vehement that he did not reach out to Rea or anybody else about killing Zack.

"I don't know who the hell you're talking about," George said. "I never heard of any of these people."

Whiddon said he is satisfied that there wasn't enough evidence to warrant any further investigation of Rea. He said he feels the same about the other suspects in the investigative file - the widow, the vinyl-siding scammer, the Iranians and George.

"I think the evidence shows that this was just a Cindy and Zaffino thing," Whiddon said. "Especially knowing what I know now, which is more than I knew before."